Miscellaneous Forum

Hmmmn, I looked at your 18 Travelogues on your homepage, but I didn't see a new one...can you show a link? It's funny that you mention this, though, because just this morning about 10 a.m., the Official Spousal Unit called me to the backdoor, where I arrived just in time to see a bobcat sauntering down the walk...it's not the first one we've seen, but the coyotes are much more common! Bill

yeah where is that travelogue, what is happening in Los Barriles lol!

sorry, guys, possibly you were looking just as I was re-arranging it up to No.1; it's titled a STRANGE VISITOR and should show as the first Travelogue on my HP....it was there now as I looked. Gracias for your interest....yeah! coincidental about that bobcat!! yeah, we have coyotes all the time, and both red and grey foxes, skunks, of course the free-range cattle, etc.

I can see him now: "A STRANGE VISITOR!" - Personal Page by ViajesdelMundo We don't really have many unusual creatures in the UK. I've had fieldmice, rats (baby ones), birds, frogs and toads in the house (mostly courtesy of my ex-cats) and hedgehogs in the garden. My friends' farm was once visited by a hoopoe (a very pretty bird which very rarely appears in the UK, let alone this far north), causing much kerfuffle and a mass invasion by twitchers (bird-watchers) from all over the country.

aha great visitor, should be a good sign from above...

Pretty cool. We had a badger in our parking lot one time. It was hold up under one of the vehicles. As a kid I remember the grandparents (Prevost side) had a fawn who had lost it's mother that would come daily and they would bottle feed the deer. An my grandparents also had an owlet that had lost it's mother. I remember it in a box in the office for a long time before they let it go. I had coyotes in my backyard one time when I live out of town.

J. - never heard of a 'hoopoe'! but just looked it up and it is very beautiful! but reminds me that about 15+ yrs ago, in our early yrs here, in front of the casa we found what we could best identify fr my books, as a Blue-Footed BOOBIE, which was out of his territory. he appeared to be young and therefore did NOT have feet as blue as depicted in these photos, for those interested: photobucket.com/images/blue%... he seemed to be a little injured; enough for me to pet him, but he eventually tottered down the beach and we didn't see him again.

Interesting visitor! "Strangest" depends a bit on context. The strangest for me personally was monkeys, but they weren't unusual for Chennai. (If you've never had monkeys invade your living space, it's not as fun as it sounds.) Strangest for the context were five pigmy goats on the deck because 1) there were no farms anywhere nearby, and 2) how the heck did they get there, because it was two stories up and there was a latched gate at the top of the stairs. Someone came and collected them later, but without explanation. I still think it was a joke and they just got the wrong house. I had a skunk in the house once too - but that wasn't so much strange as scary. That smell never comes out. My mum and dad had an infestation of flying squirrels. That has to be the cutest thing you'd never imagine having to remove from your house.

Have always loved the name boobies. We do have some oddities, escapees turned feral: wallaby colonies in Derbyshire, flocks of ring-necked parakeets in the south-east (30 000+, amazingly!), wild boar, muntjac deer (so commonplace it is no longer at all unusual), black squirrels....even scorpion colonies and Siberian chipmunks (they need to be Siberian to cope with UK weather). But I've seen one of those in my garden, although there are umpteen muntjac in the surrounding countryside.

Taylor - oh yes, I can relate a little to the monkeys, as they are SO prolific in Kandy, Sri Lanka (where I go frequently); the hotels have to have bars on the windows and caution guests not to put anything near the windows. Once in the open, when I was taking pics of a large group, they ganged up and started taking things out of my travel bag!! lesson learned. and we have been MOST fortunate relative to your other 2: there are a lot of goats which roam, but thankfully, closer to town (we are 6 miles out); so far they have not ventured out this far, but everyone in town has to has goat-proof fences! they can be very destructive to your vegetation. we occasionally have skunks in the area; but were fortunate to be away when one decided to go house hunting--our 2 neighbors actually had this guy come UP a long flight of stairs to their living area and BITE one of them!! had to get shots and all; and the next day came back to the other neighbor's house and got in (as it is so warm here, we all always have open doors) and they of course had quite a time cleaning up!

Nothing gets my attention like a bat flying over my bed

agree, for SURE! do not like bats in the bedroom at night.....in fact that is one of my earliest memories, age 3 or 4!

a baby crow....

That's pretty cool Trish! :o) Great photos mate, especially the one where it looked like he was going to fly. Those blue footed boobies are so cute! I've never seen a bird like it. Looks like they have dipped their feet in blue die :o)

The strangest was probably an armadillo (on my property, not in my house). My most beautiful visitors are cardinals.

I let geckos into my house all of the time. About 20 years ago one talked me into switching insurance on my vehicles, and I have been with them ever since.

Pelicans have been described as all the strange left overs on Disneys cutting room floor welded together to form that strange water bird. Keep well away from the hooked beak as that can do serious damage to hands. During one of the many droughts here in Oz, I saw a man pull up at a car park beside the Murray River. He opened the boot of his car and dragged out large plastic bags, which he opened, and then was swamped by the local pelicans who just knew those bags contained large bits of fish. A feeding frenzy of hungry pelicans is some sight and I even saw a tug of war between 2 hungry birds and one large chunk of fish was the prize.

Strangest was not the coyotos that sat by the front door and howled. Wasn't the 8 foot diamond back rattlesnake with a man size fist for a head. Not the rabbits that nibble the flower beds or the possum momma and her two babies. Could have been the covey of quail that ran from my front yard before flying off. No, the strangest and more interesting was a family of racoons. I went outside and surprised them. The momma and the nursery of 4 kits fled into the hedges while daddy surveyed my intentions. I stood still and he turned and ran for the hedges. I walked out in front of the hedges and saw my neighbors driveway. The father raccoon was looking around, stood his ground and looked to the hedges. Out came momma and the nursery of 4. They ran across the driveway of my neighbors and disappeared into his bushes. That was one caring father raccoon and an unusual visitor to my home. :-)

Well, I could name her but she would probably sue me so I had better not.

Cute! I love pelicans:) We've had peacocks hopping from the ground on top of our roof, and then over to the neighbors. They don't really fly but they sure can hop really high , I couldn't believe it! They run around the neighborhood, not sure where they came from. We've also had "regular" wildlife like racoons, possoms, snakes, rabbits and lots of birds, but that's not really strange here. Lately there have been 2 bears in downtown Orlando, not kidding!!

Ann - thanks for the compliment; yes, very surprised that I captured him with wings spread! Drew - never seen an armadillo close up; here they would be strange to turn up! we also have 2 couples of cardinals and seems like I've been seeing some little ones lately, but dif to tell. HA - like your gecko humor!! David - for sure about that beak! when sitting on the steps he was so close and starting to stretch out his neck toward me; I was well aware of that beak which is why I got up and went into the house. Larry - sounds as if you live in the wilds too! we don't have raccoons down here, but when we lived in SoCal, a couple of them would go swimming in our neighbor's pool and make quite a racket! my brother used to have one as a pet and I've heard they are very 'family oriented' as your story depicts. Sophia - yeah, actually the strangest part of it was how long he stayd and that he kept coming closer (and there was NO fish around at all!)